Soft Gingersnap Molasses Cookies: 4 Ways

I may or may not be overloading you with cookie recipes lately. But hey… tis’ the season right?! Truth of the matter is that I simply adore cookies. Creating them, baking them, decorating them, eating them. There are so many options, so many add-ins, so many varieties. There’s a real science behind baking cookies and, call me a nerd, but I love learning more and more with each batch I bake.

Gingersnap molasses cookies are one of my favorite cookies around the holidays, and I’m here to share 4 ways you can bake them. Soft, chewy, puffy, and simple. You cannot go wrong!

So. Earlier this month, I shared this gingersnap recipe with you and loaded the humble little cookies with butterscotch chips. You loved them! And so did I. I made a few other batches later that week. I made them plain, with chocolate chips, and with white chocolate chips. Here are the cookies with butterscotch: Soft Gingersnaps with Butterscotch Chips.

My friend Erin said the plain version are the BEST cookies I have ever made. And I make a lot of cookies. That says something. The cookies are so puffy, so soft, so thick, and incredibly chewy – everything I look for in a cookie’s texture. I like to compare them to little pillows. Pillowy molasses gingersnap cookies.

With a sugary sheen and trademark crinkly tops, gingersnap molasses cookies are the epitome of holiday baking. So many memories with my mom and sisters, rolling the balls of dough into a big mountain of sugar. The sugar-dip is the best part of making gingersnaps!

While I simply adore the butterscotch chips hiding inside, I wanted to show you three more ways to make these cookies. Plain, with white chocolate, and with semi-sweet chocolate. Here are the cookies with white chocolate chips:

And here they are with semi-sweet chocolate chips. Chocolate and molasses? Simply divine. ↓

Plain and simple, these will be the thickest and softest gingersnap cookies you will ever make.

Between the plain, the butterscotch, the white chocolate, or the regular chocolate…

Directions:

In a large bowl, mix the flour, baking soda, ginger, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, and salt. Set aside. In the bowl of a stand or handheld mixer, cream the softened butter for about 1 minute on medium speed. Add the brown sugar and beat until light and fluffy. Scrape down the sides as needed. Add the molasses, egg, and vanilla. Beat well, scraping down the sides as needed again.

Slowly add the dry ingredients to the wet on low speed. Do not overmix. Cover mixed dough with foil and chill for 2 hours or up to 3-4 days. I chilled mine overnight.

Preheat oven to 350F. Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper or a silicone mat. Shape dough into 1-inch balls and roll in granulated sugar. Place balls 2 inches apart. Bake for about 10-12 minutes or until the edges are just turning brown – cookies will be puffy and still appear soft in the middle. Remove from the oven and, if using any variety of flavor chip, immediately press 5-7 chips into the center of each cookie.

Allow to cool on the baking sheet for two minutes and transfer to a wire rack to cool completely. Store in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 1 week. Cookies may be frozen up to 3 months. Rolled cookie dough balls (after the cookie dough has been chilled in step 2) may be frozen up to 3 months. Do not thaw, simply bake for 1-2 minutes longer.

I made these last weekend and they were great!! These got hammered at the party and just looked to this recipe to make another batch for our party tomorrow. I used a bit more spices and 1/2c sugar so I could feel ok about letting my LO eat some not rolled in sugar. He loves them, too 🙂 This is my go-to from now on. Mahalo

Hello Sally, Im a big fan of your recipes. I made these two days ago and they turned out awesome! And today I decided to re-make them but this time all of them were flat. I have no idea of what could’ve happened. The first time I made them I chilled them for 2 hours only and the ones I did today were chilled overnight. I hope you could help me! And again, thank you for all of your amazing recipes!

My friends and family think I have gone crazy.. Baking non-stop like this 🙂
I knew there would at least be one person happy to see this list 🙂 Thanks for taking your time to reply to all these comments.

However, we like a very gingery taste to them. I’ve never made gingersnap cookies so I’m not sure how much ground ginger would please a ginger lover. Can you recommend a bumped up amount of ground ginger, if that’s at all necessary? Thank you!

So this has happened maybe one other time EVER. I made these a few days ago and gave them to my boyfriend to bring to work like usual to share with everyone. Yesterday I asked if he liked them and he told me ate one and decided not to share these…he ate them all!! Will definitely be making these again. As always, thanks for the recipe!

It was my first time baking Gingersnap cookies this past xmas…
The Gingersnap Molasses (plain) recipe was a HIT!
I made holiday plates with a variety of homemade baked goodies, and the overall feedback on my new “sweet-treat guest,” all fell in love! My uncle and sis raved about them.
Will def bake again!
I baked on the 9-10min side and found this to be a fair range for our older oven,

If you were to make these crunchy gingersnaps, should you just bake them for a few minutes longer with the same temperature, or bake them at a lower temperature for a longer period of time to prevent burning? Thanks!

Sally, thank you for posting consistently great recipes! And how do you stay slim?!

This is a very good cookie. The flavor is nicely spiced without being too sharp. The texture is great. I prefer the cookie plain without added sweetness, but I did add diced crystallized ginger into a batch. Since the cookie was already perfectly spiced the added ginger did not over sharpen the taste.

Note on the first batch I made: I overmixed the dry/wet ingredients and made 2″ instead of 1″ dough balls. I recommend to everyone to follow your recipe exactly in this regard.

I made these cookies yesterday and they were delicious! I was wondering, though, how you think they would turn out using white whole wheat flour instead of all-purpose. I use white whole wheat in brownies because the chocolate flavor overwhelms the “wheaty-ness,” so I thought that might work well with these as well because of all of the spices and molasses.

Hi 🙂 I have a question, I heard that gingerbread cookies can be left in a room for a few weeks and it will make them even more delicious so here is my question: is this the kind of cookie that can be left for some time or should be eaten immediately? 😀 thank you for your answer in advance and btw I came across this website today and I find it truly amazing <3

These. are. amazing! I have been looking for a great recipe for a molasses spice/gingersnap-type cookie for years, and this one is just perfect! Great texture, perfect level of spice for me…just lovely! Thank you for all your wonderful recipes! 🙂

I’ve made these before and they were great. Have you ever made these with fresh ginger instead of ground ginger, or a combination of the two? I was thinking of trying 1 or 1.5 tbsp grated fresh ginger plus 1 tsp ground ginger.

I love these cookies and they’re always a hit when I bring them into work.
I was wondering if you’ve ever added pumpkin to the recipe? Pumpkin Gingersnaps sound good in my head, just don’t know how the recipe would work out. Any ideas?

Hello!! I’m participating in a cookie exchange this weekend and want to make these for it! I need at least 4 dozen though, and the recipe says it yields 30 cookies. I don’t really want to double it, that would be SO many cookies and I have to worry about making two other kinds as well. Would the recipe translate well if I did a 1.5 amount? So like 45 cookies? Thanks!

These cookies are amazing!!!! I always mention that I bake in a high altitude environment (cause when I first got here I made many bad cookies and cakes, including tried ones). But these cookies work in high altitude and are delicious! My dough was in the fridge overnight and they were done at 9 minutes. I’ll be sending these along with your Chewy Brown Sugar Cookies to my husband, who is deployed overseas. Thank you Sally!

Love your soft-baked gingersnap molasses cookie recipe. Great results. Actually really great as I really love molasses cookies plus ginger. Like them plain, no chips and warm right out of the oven. These are Christmas gifts so I will need to make a second batch to give to everyone. I told my FB friends to check you out.
You are awesome! Keep up the wonderful recipes.

Fabulous! In lieu of chips, I added Sugar Babies to half the batch and Heath Toffee Pieces to the other half.
My husband’s buddy ate 3 dozen on the way to their hunting spot!! These were supposed to last them the whole week! Apparently these cookies were a HUGE hit, as he asked for them again next time!

My step mom used to bake these every Christmas! BUT we called them sugar and spice cookies because we would shake them in powdered sugar shortly after they came out of the oven. After she passed away I couldn’t find her recipe for them, so after some searching I found and tried this recipe. Thank you for sharing the perfect base to my favorite holiday cookie that brings back so many wonderful memories!!

My Cookbooks

@sallysbakeblog

About Sally

Welcome to my Kitchen!

I’m Sally, a cookbook author, photographer, and blogger. My goal is to give you the confidence and knowledge to cook and bake from scratch while providing quality recipes and plenty of pictures. Grab a cookie, take a seat, and have fun exploring! more about Sally